If
you have come to reject the Trinity, chances are you arrived at your conclusion
slowly and rather methodically. You likely proceeded along a particular path,
unraveling one error at a time—the errors upon which this doctrine was founded.
If you’re like me you began with the Holy Spirit. You came to see that
it is not some “person”
in a Trinity but rather the power of divine wisdom and understanding and truth.[1]
Then you came to see that Jesus was not God, and that he did not pre-exist his
human birth. Lastly, perhaps, you have come to question the virgin birth.

If this is the
order in which you have unwoven the Trinity, it is the reverse of the order in
which the doctrine developed. There is no disputation in regard to the virgin
birth in the New Testament, yet this was one of the earliest controversies for the Gentile
Church. Justin Martyr, for example, cites Isaiah 7:14 in his disputation with
Trypho.
[2]

Then
Trypho retorted, ‘The quotation is not, Behold a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, but Behold a young woman shall conceive
and bear a son,[3]
and so forth, as you quoted it. Furthermore, the prophecy as a whole
refers to Hezekiah, and it can be shown that the events described in the
prophecy were fulfilled in him. 2. Besides, in the so-called Greek myths
there is a story of how Perseus was born of Danaë, while she was a
virgin, when the one whom they call Zeus descended upon her in the form
of a golden shower. You Christians should be ashamed of yourselves,
therefore, to repeat the same kind of stories as these men, and you
should, on the contrary, acknowledge this Jesus to be a man of mere
human origin. If you can prove from the Scriptures that he is the
Christ, confess that he was considered worthy to be chosen as such
because of his perfect observance of the Law, but do not dare to speak
of miracles, lest you be accused of talking nonsense, like the Greeks.’[4]

What would the opening of the Gospel have sounded like to a Jew
of the 1st century?
[5] It would have seemed to be saying
that God was putting his blessing on an illegitimate birth!

Read it in Matthew 1:18: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on
this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came
together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.” It does not say that
this was a virgin birth, only that Joseph was not the father, and because there
was no virgin birth teaching in the Hebrew Scriptures nor was there any such
tradition anywhere (that I know of) in Judaism, an obvious conclusion would have
been that Jesus was illegitimate.[6]

But if this were
the case then Jesus could not have been the messiah—thus David Klinghoffer
(2005:164): “If he wasn’t Joseph’s son, he cannot be the messiah. If he was
Joseph’s son, he cannot be the son of God”. This is to say that Jesus cannot be
the Jewish messiah unless he descends through male parentage from David, and
that if Joseph were Jesus’ father then he cannot be the Son of God in the way
Christendom envisions Jesus’ only father as being God.

Now some who are
yet with me will wonder how far this will go. First we question the Trinity and
then the Binity and/or Arianism, we question preexistence and then the Virgin
Birth—where will it end? Must we cast aside the New Testament and all of us
convert to rabbinical Judaism? I say that we not easily throw out anything, and
that only by questioning sacrosanct doctrine will we arrive at the truth. What
is false we can cast aside and what is true will be strengthened by surviving
the challenge.[7]

We have been in
the process of peeling away the false doctrines of Christendom in reverse order
in which they were established. Justin Martyr begins with the Virgin Birth
which to him means preexistence. The Church Fathers later debate what
preexistence means—is Jesus God or was he a being created at some point in the
dim reaches of past eternity? Last of all the Cappadocian fathers instantiated
the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity.[8]
If we highlight the virgin birth and make it central to our argument against
preexistence,[9]
why will it not lead right back to the Trinity just as it did in the beginning?

The mother of all
Christological heresy, let me suggest, was the Virgin Birth.[10]

Son of David Son of Abraham

The New Testament opens with a genealogy (Mat 1:1): “The book of
the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”[11]
Do the Scriptures allow that the son of Abraham could be by adoption? When
Abraham remained childless he himself wondered (Gen 15:2-3), “And Abram said,
LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my
house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou
hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.” But, no, there
was to be no adoption (Genesis 15):

Then there is
the promise that David would never be cut off a man (אִישׁ
as opposed to אִשָּׁה
– Gen 2:23), which is paralleled by the royal genealogies, as in Matthew 1, for
example, which always go from father to son and never to a daughter—which can be
taken that Messiah would bear the Y-chromosome of David. Thus David advises
Solomon (1Kings 2),

דלְמַעַן
יָקִים יהוה אֶת־דְּבָרוֹ

4 That the LORD may continue
his word

אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר עָלַי לֵאמֹר

which he spake concerning me,
saying,

אִם־יִשְׁמְרוּ
בָנֶי אֶת־דַּרְכָּם

If thy children take heed to
their way,

לָלֶכֶת לְפָנַי בֶּאֱמֶת בְּכָל־לְבָבָם
וּבְכָל־נַפְשָׁם

to walk before me in truth
with all their heart and with all their soul,

The preservation of David’s dynasty is important to God, for when
God proposed to rend the kingdom from Solomon’s son he nevertheless would
preserve the dynasty, just as he said to Solomon (1Kings 11:13), “Howbeit I will
not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son for
David my servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.”

Notice that God
wants humans of Israel’s royal dynasty—not aliens from elsewhere—to rule over
the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, just as it says (Heb 2:5), “For
unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we
speak.” This was the first law of the king as enshrined in the Torah (Deut
17:15):[17]

שׂוֹם תָּשִׂים עָלֶי מֶלֶ

Thou shalt in any wise set
him king over thee,

אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יהוה אֱלֹהֶי בּוֹ

whom the LORD thy God shall
choose:

מִקֶּרֶב אַחֶי תָּשִׂים עָלֶי מֶלֶ

one
from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee:

לֹא תוּכַל לָתֵת עָלֶי אִישׁנָכְרִי

thou mayest not set a stranger
over thee,

אֲשֶׁר לֹא־אָחִי
הוּא׃

which is not thy
brother.

What was
prophecied? It was a man not unlike Moses from the midst of Israel (Deut 18):[18]

Peter invokes this prophecy (Acts 3:22), “For Moses truly said
unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your
brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say
unto you.” Paul also invokes the prophecy (Acts 7:37), “This is that Moses,
which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise
up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.” Similarly in
the transfiguration the voice combines Moses promise with Psalms 2:7 (Mat 17:5),
“While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a
voice out of the cloud,

which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;
hear ye him.”

Theoretically speaking the messiah could be born of a
non-Israelite mother, a convert like Ruth, for example. The promise was that
his father be of the line of David.[20]

The Illogic of the Virgin Birth

Aside from the
fact that the Virgin Birth doesn’t square with the Torah and the Prophets, but
fits perfectly with the paganism of the period, and aside from the fact that it
sparked no controversy in the New Testament but did the minute the Gentile
church fathers began disputing with Jews, aside from all that the Virgin Birth
is illogical.

The Virgin Birth
would make sense if Jesus were an avatar of some preexistent divinity or angel
such as suggested by Barker (1992). Mary would have been a surrogate mother,
and as such there would have been no need for a father. But for those who
reject the preexistence of the Messiah, why should there be a Virgin Birth?

Why would the
Bible preserve father to son genealogies from Adam to Joseph only to have Jesus
adopted into the genealogy? If Jesus were a preexistent being then this would
make sense—otherwise it does not.

And so for
Trinitarians, Binitarians, and various genres of Arians, the Virgin Birth does
make sense, and thus my argument is not directed at them but to those who reject
the personal preexistence of Jesus.

William Barclay on Luke 1:26-38 (Barclay 1971:15-16):

In
this passage we are face to face with one of the great controversial
doctrines of the Christian faith – the virgin birth. The Church does
not insist that we believe in this doctrine. Let us look at the
reasons for and against believing in it, and then we may make our
own decision.

There are two great reasons for accepting it.

(1)The literal meaning of
this passage, and still more of Matthew 1:18-25, clearly is that
Jesus was to be born of Mary without a human father.

(2)It is natural to argue
that if Jesus was, as we believe, a very special person, he would
have a special entry into the world.

Now
let us look at the things which may make us wonder if the story of
the virgin birth is to be taken as literally as all that.

(1)The genealogies of Jesus
both in Luke and in Matthew (Luke 3:23-38; Matthew 1:1-17) trace the
genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, which is strange if Joseph
was not his real father.

(2)When Mary was looking for
Jesus on the occasion that he lingered behind in the Temple, she
said, ‘Your father and I have been searching for you in great
anxiety’ (Luke 2:48). The name father is definitely given by
Mary to Joseph.

(3)Repeatedly Jesus is
referred to as Joseph’s son (Matthew 13:55; John 6:42).

(4)The rest of the New
Testament knows nothing of the virgin birth. True, in Galatians 4:4
Paul speaks of Jesus as ‘born of woman’. But this is the natural
phrase for any human being (cf. Job 14:1, 15:14, 25:4).

But let us ask, ‘If we do not take the story of the virgin birth
literally, how did it arise?’ The Jews had a saying that in the
birth of every child there are three partners – the father, the
mother and the Spirit of God. They believed that no child could ever
be born without the Spirit. And it may well be that the New
Testament stories of the birth of Jesus are lovely, poetical ways of
saying that, even if he had a human father, the Holy spirit of God
was operative in his birth in a unique way. [Or that this emphasis
on the spirit of God led to some textual corruption. NR]

There are some
who subscribe to the preexistence of the soul,[21]
but for such believers the body still results from the union of egg and sperm
and thus for them the Virgin Birth still makes no sense.

Another scenario
one might imagine would be that what was found in Mary’s womb derived not from
the normal union of egg and sperm but was a zygote independently created as if
at the moment of “conception”—perhaps prefigured by Adam who was without human
parentage. Nevertheless the new creation (καινὴ
κτίσις) that we are to
become (2Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15) in no way implies a by-passing of the normal
process of conception and birth.

Aside from such a
scenario, what would the Virgin Birth entail for the non-Trinitarian,
non-Binitarian and non-Arian?

It would mean
that God committed adultery! God would have committed adultery with the woman
betrothed to Joseph. For either the child entered Mary’s womb as a zygote
(fertilized egg), or it resulted from the fertilization of one of Mary’s eggs by
a sperm from outside. And if this is what made God become the Father of Jesus,
it was adultery plain (if not pure) and simple.

The Trinitarians,
of course, have taken the position that Jesus was an avatar of the Second Person
of the Trinity—whatever that means—and that Jesus’ sonship does not derive from
a conception in Mary’s womb. Thus the Trinitarians speak of “the Father
eternally generating the Son.”[22]
One never hears that it
was the conception in Mary’s womb that bestowed fatherhood on God. To say so
would be accusing God of adultery.

But Luke, it seems to me, speaks not of surrogate motherhood, but
of a conception (Luke 1:31), “And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and
bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.” And then again in Luke 2:21
we are told, “And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the
child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was
conceived in the womb.” It is similarly said of Elizabeth (Luke 1:24), “And
after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived,” and again by the angel in verses
36-37, “And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her
old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with
God nothing shall be impossible.”

Now to sum up:
Mary was either a surrogate mother or God committed adultery with her. The
virgin birth makes sense only if Jesus was an avatar of a preexistent being,
whether that being was God himself (the Second Person of the Trinity), a second
YHWH (One of the Binity), or a created being. The latter might have been
created eons in the past (the Arian view) or at the moment the zygote entered
Mary’s womb.

My wife brings up
another irony: If God committed adultery with Mary he also committed incest, for
wasn’t God also Mary’s Father even before the conception occurred (Isaiah 63:16;
64:8; 1Chron 29:10; Luke 3:38; etc.)?

Therefore I have
to agree with the Trinitarians insofar as they reject the notion that God became
Jesus’ father via the conception in the womb of Mary as described in Luke 1:31,
35. Rather it was from the womb that Jesus was led by a holy spirit and that is
what made him a son.

It’s not that
Jesus began as a divine emissary from Heaven, or a special physical creation,
rather it’s that a man of Israel—a prophet from the midst of Israel, an
Israelite like unto Moses (Deut 18:15), one from the very reproductive organs of
Abraham (Gen 15:4) and of David (2Sam 7:12) and from whose genealogy a man (אִישׁ)
would never be cut off (2Sam 7:12)—that man is exalted to heaven via a
resurrection from the dead such that he can occupy the throne of David and bring
lasting peace to this world. This is the good news of the Kingdom of God.
[23]

How is he then a son?

The shocking but
wonderfully good news of the New Testament was that Jesus had been resurrected
from the dead. Until that point the disciples seem to have understood that
Jesus was the messiah, meaning that he had come to sit upon the throne of David
and restore the kingdom to Israel. It was not in their purview to think that he
would die first.

But think what
that would have meant. Once again there would have been a mortal sitting
upon the throne of David. How long would he reign? Forty years? Maybe a
little longer? However long and however effective his reign, how would it be
any better than that of Moses or Joshua or David? Justice would prevail and the
nations would flow up to Jerusalem for however long, and then what? The same
old same old. Human nature being what it is, sooner or later the leader would
stray and so would the people.
[24]

No, a
resurrection to immortality was required.

When the angel tells Mary that (Luke 1:35) “a holy spirit shall
come upon thee,” this parallels what had been said to Zachariah in regard to his
son (verse 15), “…and he shall be filled with a holy spirit, even from his
mother’s womb.” From the perspective of Luke neither pregnancy is sired by the
Holy Spirit, rather in each instance the child is to be imbued with a holy
spirit from the womb.

Again when the angel tells Mary (verse 35), “…therefore that
which shall be born of thee

ἅγιον
κληθήσεται, υἱὸς
θεοῦ

shall be called holy, a son of God,”

this matches what Luke cites from the Torah[25]
in Luke 2:23, “Every male that openeth the womb

ἅγιον
τῶ
κυρίῳ
κληθήσεται

shall be called holy to the Lord.”

What is the
contrast that Luke intends? Let me suggest this: If the firstborn of an
Israelite woman is holy, so also is the firstborn of the celestial Jerusalem—as
pictured in the book of Revelation (Rev 12:1-5):

And there appeared a great
wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her
feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with
child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there
appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having
seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail
drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the
earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be
delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she
brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of
iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

Note that there is no mention of Jesus’ human birth and no
mention of his death. The “travailing” is the birth pangs of messiah (חֶבְלֵי
מָשִׁיחַ)—not messiah’s “passion” and death—it’s
the suffering not of messiah but of the nation giving birth—and there is no
mention of his death. Rather messiah is caught up to God so as not to be
devoured by the dragon, i.e., the demonic power behind Rome. Thus the birth
chronicled here is not the virgin birth but rather Jesus’ resurrection from the
dead. We, unlike messiah who has been so
birthed already, we yet await our turn within the womb of Israel (Rev 20:1-5),
nevertheless, as Paul says, we all—messiah
included—have the same celestial mother (Gal
4:26): “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”

Thus Luke records that Jesus not only will be called holy, he
will be called (Luke 1:35) “a son of God.” And this accords with what Paul says
inRomans 8:14: “For as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”[26]
And just as every male that opens the womb is holy, so also would he that opens
the womb of the celestial Jerusalem be called holy, a son of God. It’s the
spirit that would come upon him in the womb that would set him apart as a son of
God.[27]
The angel’s statement (Luke 1:35),

πνεῦμα
ἅγιον
ἐπελεύσεται
ἐπὶ
σέ καὶ
δύναμις ὑψίστου
ἐπισκιάσει
σοι

“holy spirit shall come upon thee and
power of the Most High shall overshadow thee”

is paralleled by Peter’s recollection (Acts 10:38),

ὡς
ἔχρισεν
αὐτὸν
ὁ
θεὸς
πνεύματι ἁγίῳ
καὶ
δυνάμει

“as God anointed him with holy spirit
and with power”

It was just as it had been prophesied. Inheritance and scepter
come via the patriarchy (Num 1:18-19; 2:1-2), and genetic descent is everywhere
emphasized. Israel’s messiah exemplifies both the human genealogy and a godly
inspiration (Isaiah 11):

Taking in stride all of Luke’s statements we see that the
anointing in Luke 1:35 was not what made Mary pregnant—it was what made Jesus
the Messiah or Christ.[29]

Luke 1:35 need say nothing different then John 1:14: “And the
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” What was
incarnated by a spirit of holiness was the Torah
(Jer 31:32[33]), “But this
shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those
days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in
their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

The author of the Epistles of John says two things. He says that
we—including Jesus—are sons of God (1John 1:3; 3:2; etc.), and he says that
Jesus has come in the flesh (1John 4:2-3):

Hereby know ye the Spirit of
God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh
is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of
antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now
already is it in the world.

The point is made again in 2John 1:7—

For many deceivers are entered
into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

Now if saying that Jesus has not come in the flesh perverts the
promise of Scripture in regard to the messiah, might also denying that the
messiah had a human father verge on being an anti-messianic deception?

The Word of Life

Jesus prayed (John 17:3), “And this is life eternal, that they
might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” How
is knowing God the same thing as eternal life? One is reminded of this in a
verse of the New Covenant chapter (Jer 31:33[34]): “And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for
they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them ...”
The key to it all is in 1John 2:3-4, “And hereby we do know that we know him, if
we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

Knowing God is keeping his commandments! And the commandments in
the heart equals eternal life—life via a resurrection from the dead. The wisdom
of Torah (1Chron 22:12) is symbolized by the tree of life (Prov 3:18): “She
is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one
that retaineth her.”

The spirit is connected to the word, as in John 3:34: “For he
whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by
measure unto him.” And it was this that empowered Jesus to triumph over
sin (Heb 4:15), “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin.” It was not easy, he could have failed (Heb 5:7-9), “Who in the
days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong
crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in
that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things
which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal
salvation unto all them that obey him …”

And so from the womb there would come upon Jesus ‘a holy spirit’
(Luke 1:35), and this, according to Paul, is what brought Jesus up from the
grave (Rom 1:3-4):

Concerning his Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, which was made[30]
of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be
the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the
resurrection from the dead …

Jesus is called “the firstborn from the dead” in Colossians 1:18
and in Revelation 1:5, and “the firstborn among many brethren” in Romans 8:29,
thus indicating that we are to follow the same path to resurrection. Conception
and birth as spiritual metaphor is explained in James (Jas 1:13-18):

Let no man say when he is
tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn
away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it
bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift
is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is
no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us
with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits [ἀπαρχή]
of his creatures.

And so if we are firstfruits this implies resurrection, as it
says (1Cor 15:20), “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the
firstfruits [ἀπαρχή]
of them that slept.”[31]

And let us not forget that the seed of it all is Torah, as in
James 1:18 (“… begat he us with the word of truth”), and as Jesus himself says
(John 6:63), “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

Now what is the end result of all this? According to Jesus the
sons of God are slated to be sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:36): “Neither can
they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of
God, being the children of the resurrection.”

This is the huge
new understanding that Jesus’ disciples were destined to proclaim.

Of course Jesus
had to die before he could be resurrected. Paul writes (1Cor
2:2), “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and
him crucified.” Paul doesn’t mean, of course, that Jesus’ death is what it’s all
about. No, in “the resurrection chapter” of the same book he also says (1Cor
15:19-20), “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the
firstfruits of them that slept.”

The disciples’
teaching differed little if any from that heard in the synagogue—except on the
one huge issue of Jesus’ resurrection. Why did Jesus’ disciples deem it
necessary to lay down only the least requirements for their Gentile disciples?
Because they were already attending the synagogue and could learn there! As
James said at the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:19-21),

Wherefore
my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles
are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from
pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things
strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every
city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath
day.

We are sons now
but the birth process is not yet complete (1John 3:2), “Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we
know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as
he is.”

What’s the difference between the traditional Jewish view of the
Messiah and the New Testament view? Strip away the Trinity, preexistence and
the virgin birth, and what remains is the resurrection. In both the New
Testament and in Judaism the messiah is a man, but in Judaism the messiah
remains mortal and reigns however many years and then he dies. I ask again, How
will his reign be any more successful than that of Moses or Joshua or David or
any other righteous in Israel? He may restore the kingdom to Israel, but then
he will die and Israel will go into apostasy and it will have to be done all
over again. Call it the eternal return!

Resurrection Implied in the
Tanakh

On the Shavuot or Pentecost following Jesus’ resurrection, Peter
preached from the Tanakh on the necessity of the resurrection of Jesus (Acts
2:24-34),

Whom God hath raised up,
having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he
should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him [Psalms
16:8-11],[32]

I foresaw the Lord always
before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my
flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast
made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with
thy countenance.

Men and brethren, let
me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead
and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore being
a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of
the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ
to sit on his throne [Psalms 132:11; 2Samuel 7:12-13]; He seeing this
before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left
in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption [Psalms 16:10]. This Jesus
hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the
right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself [Psalms
110:1],

The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool.

Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have
crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Psalms 16 can be
taken to refer to the future resurrection of David, other passages simply say
that the throne[33]—not
necessarily the mortal sitting upon it—will endure forever. And I can imagine
that this is precisely how Jesus’ contemporaries, his disciples included,
understood such verses. But then after the resurrection the full import became
abundantly clear. The Messiah would have to be resurrected from the dead!
Otherwise the throne itself could not endure—why? Because sooner or later a
scion of that throne would lapse into sin, the diaspora would forever repeat,
and darkness never would be permanently expelled from the nations.

One great
treasure that Judaism bequeathed to the world is the idea of progress.[34]
History is not just endless cycles. Rather we are headed somewhere. The God of
Israel is goal oriented. He has a plan and a schedule. Winston Churchill
expressed this conviction in his address to the Congress of the United States at
the onset of America’s entry into World War II (December 26, 1941):[35]

If you
will allow me to use other language, I will say that he must indeed have
a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being
worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful
servants.

Commenting on a
comment by atheist Sam Harris to the effect that Jews should repudiate the
existence of God because of the Holocaust, David Berlinski replies (2008:31),
“And if God did not protect his chosen people precisely as Harris might have
wished, He did, in an access of his old accustomed vigor, smite their enemies,
with generations to come in mourning or obsessed by shame.” In spite of all the
evil in the world, history is moving inexorably toward a better future.

But none of the
Gentiles ever viewed time as linear. They saw it as cyclical—the
eternal return.[36]
Sometimes they envisioned a golden age long past, with the present and the
future exhibiting but a pale semblance of that age. And of course if there is
no resurrection—and none of the Gentiles ever believed in a resurrection[37]—then
we are stuck with the stark caricature laid out in Qohelet (Ecc 1:9-10):

חכָּל־הַדְּבָרִים
יְגֵעִים

8 All things are full
of labour;

לֹא־יוּכַל
אִישׁ
לְדַבֵּר

Man cannot utter it:

לֹא־תִשְׂבַּע
עַיִן לִרְאוֹת

the eye is not satisfied with
seeing,

וְלֹא־תִמָּלֵא
אֹזֶן מִשְּׁמֹעַ׃

nor the ear filled with
hearing.

טמַה־שֶּׁהָיָה
הוּא שֶׁיִּהְיֶה

9 The thing that hath been, it
is that which shall be;

וּמַה־שֶּׁנַּעֲשָׂה
הוּא שֶׁיֵּעָשֶׂה

and that which is done is
that which shall be done:

וְאֵין כָּל־חָדָשׁ
תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ׃

and there is no new
thing under the sun.

ייֵשׁ
דָּבָר שֶׁיֹּאמַר

10 Is there any thing
whereof it may be said,

רְאֵה־זֶה
חָדָשׁ
הוּא

See, this is new?

כְּבָר הָיָה לְעֹלָמִים אֲשֶׁר הָיָה מִלְּפָנֵנוּ׃

it hath been already of old
time, which was before us.

יאאֵין
זִכְרוֹן לָרִאשֹׁנִים

11 There is no
remembrance of former things;

וְגַם
לָאַחֲרֹנִים שֶׁיִּהְיוּ לֹא־יִהְיֶה
לָהֶם זִכָּרוֹן

neither shall there be any
remembrance of things that are to come

עִם שֶׁיִּהְיוּלָאַחֲרֹנָה׃ פ

with those that shall
come after.

That is the bleak
message that tradition mandates be read on the intervening Sabbath within the
seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, which begins with the sixth Yom Tov
(annual Holy Day) of the sacred year. It is then we anticipate rest from the
sufferings inflicted upon us during the progress of God’s great spiritual
creation—as in Isaiah 65:

יזכִּי־הִנְנִי

17 For, behold,

בוֹרֵא שָׁמַיִם חֲדָשִׁים וָאָרֶץ חֲדָשָׁה

I [am creating] new heavens
and a new earth:

וְלֹאתִזָּכַרְנָה הָרִאשֹׁנוֹת

and the former shall not be
remembered,

וְלֹא תַעֲלֶינָה עַל־לֵב׃

nor come into mind.

יחכִּי־אִם־שִׂישׂוּ
וְגִילוּ עֲדֵי־עַד

18 But be ye glad and rejoice
for ever

אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי בוֹרֵא

in that
which I [am creating]:

כִּיהִנְנִי
בוֹרֵא אֶת־יְרוּשָׁלִַם
גִּילָה

for, behold, I [am creating]
Jerusalem a rejoicing,

וְעַמָּהּ מָשׂוֹשׂ׃

and her people a joy.

Is it true that the Tanakh prophesied a messiah who would be
resurrected from the dead before he would sit upon the throne of David?
Consider Psalms 2:

ווַאֲנִי
נָסַכְתִּי מַלְכִּיעַל־צִיּוֹן
הַר־קָדְשִׁי׃

6 Yet have I set my king upon
my holy hill of Zion.

זאֲסַפְּרָה
אֶל־חֹק

7 I will declare the decree:

יהוה אָמַר אֵלַי

the LORD hath said unto me,

בְּנִי אַתָּה

Thou art my Son;

אֲנִי הַיּוֹם יְלִדְתִּי׃

this day have I begotten thee.

חשְׁאַל
מִמֶּנִּי

8 Ask of me,

וְאֶתְּנָה גוֹיִםנַחֲלָתֶ

and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance,

וַאֲחֻזָּתְ אַפְסֵי־אָרֶץ׃

and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession.

טתְּרֹעֵם
בְּשֵׁבֶט בַּרְזֶל

9 Thou shalt break them with a
rod of iron;

כִּכְלִי יוֹצֵר תְּנַפְּצֵם׃

thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter’s vessel.

Paul sees in this passage the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 13:33),
“God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up
Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this
day have I begotten thee.” Luke emphasizes this divine sonship (Luke 1:35) and
relates it to Adam “who was the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Adam was made in the
image of God (Gen 1:27), and part of that image is immortality—having the mind
or spirit of God that merits eternal life as symbolized by eating of the fruit
of the tree of life and living forever (Gen 3:22). This is the birth imagery in
John’s gospel, e.g., John 3:3, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God.” Paul interprets this as the resurrection (1Cor 15:50-52):

Now this I say, brethren, that
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

And so the king of Israel who occupies the throne of Adam is—like
Adam—a son of God. The rulers of Israel already occupy offices of God, meaning
that Israel fills in for Adam (Ezekiel 34:31):

וְאַתֵּן צֹאנִי צֹאן מַרְעִיתִי

And ye [fem.] are my flock,
the flock of my pasture,

אָדָם אַתֶּם

ye [masc.] are Adam

אֲנִי אֱלֹהֵיכֶם

I am your God,

נְאֻםאֲדֹנָי יהוה׃

saith the Lord GOD.

But Israel is composed of mortals, as this Psalm of Asaph reminds
us (Psalms 82):

In verse 6 ‘ye’ (אַתֶּם)
is Israel but in verse 8 ‘thou’ (אַתָּה)
is God—God shall inherit all nations—but how? Doesn’t God already possess
them? He does—nevertheless he turns them over to the messiah (Psalms 2:8),

חשְׁאַל
מִמֶּנִּי

8 Ask of me,

וְאֶתְּנָה גוֹיִםנַחֲלָתֶ

and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance,

וַאֲחֻזָּתְ אַפְסֵי־אָרֶץ׃

and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession.

When messiah has subdued the nations he turns them over to God
who then shall inherit all nations (1Cor 15:27-28): “For he hath put all things
under his feet [Psalms 8:7(6)]. But when he saith all things are put under
him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself
be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”

It is not a part of Judaism to suggest that messiah might be made
immortal before being installed upon the throne of David. Nevertheless there is
an interesting passage in the Talmud which so alludes (Sukkah 52a):[39]

תָּנוּ רַבָּנָן

The rabbis discussed (apart
from the Mishna):

מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן דָּוִד

Messiah
son of
David,

שֶׁעָתִיד לְהִגָּלוֹת בִּמְהֵרָה בְּיָמֵינוּ

let him
be revealed speedily in our day,

אוֹמֵר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּ הוּא

the Holy
One blessed be he will say to him,

שְׁאַל מִמֶּנִּי דָּבָר וְאֶתֵּן לְ

Ask
whatever and I will give it to you,

שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר

as it
says (Psalms 2:7-8),

אֲסַפְּרָה אֶל חֹק וְגוֹ׳ אֲנִי הַיּוֹם יְלִדְתּי

“I will
declare the decree ... this day have I begotten thee.

שְׁאַל מִמֶּנִּי וְאֶתְּנָה גוֹיִם נַחֲלָתֶ

Ask of
me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance …”

וְכֵיוָן שֶׁרָאָה מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן יוֹסֵף שֶׁנֶּהֱרַג

And
seeing messiah son of Joseph who is killed

אוֹמֵר לְפָנָיו

he will
say to him [to God],

רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם

Master of
the Universe,

אֵינִי מְבַקֵּשׁ מִמְּ אֶלָּא חַיִּים

I ask you
for nothing but life.

אוֹמֵר לוֹ

He will
answer him,

חַיִּים עַד שֶׁלּא אָמַרְתָּ

Life
before you said it!

דָּוִד אָבִי כְּבָר הִתְנַבֵּא עָלֶי

Your
father David already prophesied about you,

שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר

as it
says (Psalms 21:5),

חַיִּים שָׁאַל מִמְּ נָתַתָּה לוֹ וגו׳

“He asked
life of thee, and thou gavest it him ...”

Thus when messiah ben David sits upon the throne, it is
life—eternal life—that is the prerequisite. And so messiah is established upon
the throne in the image of God as a son (Psalms 2:7), “I will declare the
decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I
begotten thee.” It is messiah son of Joseph who becomes God’s firstborn (Jer
31:8[9]), “for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”
And then afterward messiah son of David is installed upon the throne as God’s
firstborn (Psalms 89:28[27]), “Also I will make him my firstborn, higher
than the kings of the earth.” One imagines that God has only one firstborn by
his legitimate wife the celestial Jerusalem (Rev 12:1-5).

The resurrection
is still a very Jewish hope, itself immortalized as the 13th of the
Rambam’s Thirteen Principle of Faith:

אֲנִי
מַאֲמִין
בֶּאֱמוּנָה
שְׁלֵמָה

I believe
in complete faith,

שֶׁתִּהְיֶה
תְּחִיַּת
הַמֵּתִים

that the
resurrection of the dead shall occur

בְּעֵת
שֶׁיַּעֲלֶה
רָצוֹןמֵאֵת
הַבּוֹרֵא

in the
time when the purpose of the creation is manifest,

יִתְבָּרַ שְׁמוֹ

his name
shall be blessed

וְיִתְעַלֶּה
זִכְרוֹלָעַד
וּלְנֵצַחנְצָחִים

and his
remembrance shall be raised up forever and ever.

And Judaism understands, just as the New Testament (John 1:14;
6:63; James 1:18; etc.) that eternal life is imparted by the word in us, as in
the traditional prayer recited after reading the Torah:

בָּרוּ אַתָּה יהוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶ הָעוֹלָם

Blessed are you Adonai our God
king of the Universe,

אֲשֶׁר נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת תּוֹרַת אֱמֶת

Who gave us the Torah of
truth,

וְחַיֵּי עוֹלָם נָטַע בְּתוֹכֵנוּ

and implanted eternal life
within us.

בָּרוּ אַתָּה יהוה נוֹתֵן הַתּוֹרָה אָמֵן

Blessed are you Adonai giver
of the Torah. Amen

Just like God
himself—the messiah is a stone of contention for the Judeo-Christian
(Isaiah 8:14; 28:16; 1Pet 2:6; Rom 9:33). The
one denies his Davidic descent, the other his resurrection to immortality. If
you accept that he was truly of the seed of David
patrilineallyand
resurrected bodily from the dead to eternal life then you are a heretic in both
camps. The question, however, is: Might you be right?

Cappon, Lester
J., editor. 1959. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence
Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. Chapel Hill and
London: The University of North Carolina Press.

Dunn, James D.
G. 1996.
Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the
Doctrine of the Incarnation. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company.

Eliade, Mircea.
1954. The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History. Translated
from the original Romanian by Willard R. Trask. Princeton Classic Editions
(with numerous reprints). Princeton University Press.

Finazzo,
Giancarlo. 1978. The Virgin Mary in the Koran. L’Osservatore Romano
English Edition, April 13, page 4. [L’Osservatore Romano is the
newspaper of the Holy See. The Weekly English Edition is published in the
United States by The Cathedral Foundation L’Osservatore Romano English Edition,
320 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201.

Klinghoffer,
David. 2005. Why
the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.
New York: Doubleday.

Marshall, I.
Howard. 1978. The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. The
New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids,k Michigan: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Navas, Patrick.
2007. Divine Truth or Human Tradition: A Reconsideration of the Roman
Catholic-Protestant Doctrine of the Trinity in Light of the Hebrew and Christian
Scriptures. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse.

Nisbet,
Robert. 1980. History of the Idea of Progress. New York: Basic Books.

Rubenstein,
Richard E. 2000.
When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days
of Rome.
San Diego: Harvest Books.

Schaff, Philip. 1890. Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History,
Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine. Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church 2-01. New York: Christian
Literature Publishing Co..

Tabor, James D.
2006.
The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family,
and the Birth of Christianity.
New York: Simon & Schuster.

Wexelman, David
M. 1999. The Jewish
Concept of Reincarnation and Creation: Based on the Writings of Rabbi Chaim
Vital. Lanham,
Maryland: Jason
Aronson Publishers, Inc.

Wright, Nicholas
Thomas. 2008. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and
the Mission of the Church. New York: Harper One (an Imprint of Harper
Collins Publishers).

[1]What is the
רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים
‘the spirit of God’ as in Genesis 1:2? In the Scriptures it is the
“software” of wisdom, such as, for example (Ex 31:3), וָאֲמַלֵּא אֹתוֹ רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים
‘and I have filled him with the spirit of God,’ which parallels (Ex
28:3), אֲשֶׁר מִלֵּאתִיו רוּחַחָכְמָה
‘whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom’.

[2]Justin Martyr,
Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 67. The English translation is
from Falls (2003). Writing sometime in the mid 2nd century
CE, Justin Martyr presents his protagonist (Τρύφων)
as a Jew. Trypho could have been the eminent Rabbi Tarfon (רבי
טרפון), but see
Shiffman (1998).

[3]When Trypho says
that Isaiah 7:14 says not (as in the LXX), ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος … ‘behold the virgin …’ but
rather, ἰδοὺ ἡ νεᾶνις …
‘behold the young woman …,’ does this negate the claim that neither the
Hebrew עַלְמָה
nor בְּתוּלָה,
the Aramaic ܒ݁ܬ݂ܽܘܠܬ݁ܳܐ,
nor the Greek παρθένος
carry the meaning of our word “virgin”? I would say not, at least in
the biblical texts, as argued in Isbell (1978), though likely by
Justin’s time and based on this very verse in Isaiah, παρθένος
was taking on this sense in theological disputes.

[4]Here one cannot
resist a quote from Thomas Jefferson, who rejected the virgin birth but
not necessarily biblical religion:

The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus
are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have
perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely
incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine
words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of
Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a
virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of
Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn
of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do
away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the
primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated
reformer of human errors.

From a
letter to John Adams dated April 11, 1823. See Cappon (1959:594).
Letter is also available on line at http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_adams.html.

[5]The Ebionites
were evidently a remnant of the original Jerusalem Jewish congregation
and, for what it’s worth, they rejected the virgin birth, as reported
for example in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History III.27.2
(translation from Schaff 1890, available on line at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.viii.xxvii.html):

For they considered him a plain and common man, who was
justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the
fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion
the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary,
on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ
alone and by a corresponding life.

[6]Whereas Matthew
indicates that Joseph was not Jesus’ father, the only real oddity in
Luke is Luke 1:34, “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be,
seeing I know not a man?” This is perplexing in its context and there
are many theories. According to Brown (1993:306), “One theory is that
Mary understood the angel’s words in vs. 31 to mean that she was
immediately becoming pregnant or was already so—not ‘you will conceive’
but ‘you are conceiving,’ or ‘you have conceived.’ Since the child was
or is conceived without relations with her husband, Mary is forced to
ask the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have had no relations with a
man?’ It is true that the Hebrew participial expression in the
annunciation of birth narratives can be understood as either a present
or future …, but Luke’s Greek is clearly future. Any theory that Luke
has mistranslated in vs. 31 is made unlikely by the presence of more
future verbs in 35: the conception is yet to happen. And indeed it
would violate the genius of the Lucan narrative to have the conception
take place before Mary has given her consent in vs. 38.”

[7]This paper aims
to insulate against a trajectory such as in Tabor (2006), where the New
Testament has been entirely cast aside. The important truth is not the
virgin birth. If it falls this does not take away from what is central
to the New Testament, namely the resurrection.

[8]See for example
The Book of Saint Basil on the Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto)
in Schaff (1895), which is available on the web at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.vii.i.html.

[9]As, for example,
where Buzzard (2007:200) cites Dunn (1996:51): “Here it is sufficiently
clear that a virginal conception by divine power without the
participation of any man is in view ([Luke] 1:34). But here too it is
sufficiently clear that it is a begetting, a becoming, which is in view,
the coming into existence of one who will be called, and will in
fact be the Son of God, not the transition of a preexisting being
to become the soul of a human baby or the metamorphosis of a divine
being into a human fetus.” In this paper I argue that the divine
sonship described in Luke comes not via a virgin birth but through the
indwelling of Torah resulting in a resurrection from death to
immortality.

[10]For an impartial
and highly readable history of the development of the Trinity, see
Rubenstein (2000). For arguments against the Trinity and preexistence,
Buzzard and Hunting (1998), Ohlig (2002), Buzzard (2002, 2007), and
Navas (2007) are recommended. I would also suggest that such efforts to
define God and the impulse to bestow upon him ever greater transcendence
contributed to the Deism that led to agnosticism that ended up in the
atheistic materialism that now dominates the western world.

[11]The Greek (βίβλος
γενέσεως ‘a book
of genealogy’) reflects the Septuagint for Genesis 2:4 and 5:1: αὕτη ἡ βίβλος γενέσεως
‘this the book of genealogy …’, whereas the Peshitta’s ܟ݁ܬ݂ܳܒ݂ܳܐ ܕ݁ܺܝܠܺܝܕ݂ܽܘܬ݂ܶܗ
(better still the Sinaitic ܟ݁ܬ݂ܳܒ݂ܳܐ ܕܬܰܘ̈ܠܕܳܬܴܐ)
follows more closely Genesis 5:1. There is no mention of מָשִׁיחַ
‘messiah’ in this verse in the Shem-Tov Hebrew (Howard 1988): אלה תולדות יש"ו בן דוד בן אברהם
“These are the generations of Jesus son of David son of Abraham”.

[12]Here one is
reminded of where the angel says to Zachariah (Luke 1:13),

ܘܰܐܢ݈ܬ݁ܬ݂ܳܟ݂ ܐܶܠܺܝܫܒ݂ܰܥ ܬ݁ܺܐܠܰܕ݂ ܠܳܟ݂ ܒ݁ܪܳܐ

and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son,

ܘܬ݂ܶܩܪܶܐ ܫܡܶܗ ܝܽܘܚܰܢܳܢ

and thou shalt call his name John.

The above is from the Peshitta
which more perfectly mirrors Gen 17:19 and which also is reminiscent of
the Old Syriac (Sinaitic and Curetonian) of Matthew where the angel says
to Joseph (Mat 1:21):

ܬ݁ܺܐܠܰܕ݂ ܠܳܟ݂ ܕ݁ܶܝܢ ܒ݁ܪܳܐ

And she shall bear thee a son

ܘܬ݂ܶܩܪܶܐ ܫܡܶܗ ܝܶܫܽܘܥ

and thou shalt call his name Jesus,

[13]Paul, who knows
nothing of the virgin birth, knows this (Acts 13:23): “Of this man’s
seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a
Saviour, Jesus …”

[14]Peter alludes to
these verses in his Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:30), “Therefore being a
prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the
fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to
sit on his throne”.

[15]Genetic markers
(mutations) on the Y-Chromosome of the sons of Aaron have evidently been
identified, for which see Kleiman (2004). If this claim holds true,
then it is a remarkable confirmation of God’s having kept his promise,
as here in Jeremiah 33 and as, for example, in Exodus 40:15 and
Deuteronomy 18:5. If God has secured an identifiable male to male
genealogy for the priests from Aaron to today, could he not have done
the same thing from David to Joseph? And if so, why only adopt Jesus
into that genealogy?

[17]The United
States Presidency is founded upon a similar law—Article II, Section I of
the Constitution which states, “No person except a natural born citizen,
or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this
Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of the President.”

[18]Contained within
this fundamental messianic prophecy is this warning (Deut 18:20-22):
“But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which
I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of
other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart,
How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a
prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor
come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken,
but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be
afraid of him.” The ultimate proof of the messiahship of Jesus is
whether or not he will come back and finish the job (Acts 1:11): “Ye men
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which
is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye
have seen him go into heaven.”

[19]The Septuagint
has, ἐν Χωρηβτῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς ἐκκλησίας
‘in Horeb in the day of the assembly’, which recalls Jesus’ promise (Mat
16:18), καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν
‘and upon this rock [Jerusalem] I will build my assembly’. Then, unlike
the assembly convoked through Moses at Horeb and which perished in the
40 years in the wilderness, the gates of hell shall not prevail against
Messiah’s assembly.

[20]In rabbinical
metaphor the maternal line of Adam/Messiah is the ‘ground’ (אֲדָמָה),
as in the Midrash (Bereshit Rabbah 14:8):

מִמָּקוֹם כַּפָּרָתוֹ נִבְרָא

Out of the place of
his atonement was he created,

הֵי מַה דאת אָמַר

inasmuch as He said
(Ex 20:24),

מִזְבַּח אֲדָמָה תַּעֲשֶׂה־לִּי

‘An altar of earth
thou shalt make unto me’

Thus also the Rambam in
Mishne Torah (הלכות
בית הבחירה פרק ב):

אָדָם מִמָּקוֹם כַּפָּרָתוֹ נִבְרָא

Adam was created from
the place of his atonement

And again the Ramban at
Genesis 1:26:

אָמַר בָּאָדָם נַעֲשֶׂה

Concerning Adam he
said, “Let us make …”

כְּלוֹמַר אֲנִי וְהָאָרץ הַנִּזְכֶּרֶת נַעֲשֶׂה
אָדָם

meaning, “I and the
aforementioned land will make man.”

And then there is Rashi at
Genesis 2:7,

צָבַר עֲפָרוֹ מִכָּל הָאֲדָמָה מֵאַרְבַּע רוּחוֹת

He collected his dust
from the four winds

Which reflects Targum Jonathan
at Genesis 2:7:

וּבְרָא יְיָ אֱלֹהִים יַת אָדָם בִּתְרֵין
יִצְרִין

And the Lord God
created man in two formations [i.e., clay and breath];

וּדְבַר עַפְרָא מֵאֲתַר בֵּית מַקְדְּשָׁא

and took dust from the
place of the house of the sanctuary,

וּמֵאַרְבַּעַת רוּחֵי עַלְמָא

and from the four
winds of the world,

וּפַתָּכָא מִכָּל מֵימֵי עַלְמָא

and mixed it from all
the waters of the world,

וּבַרְיֵהּ סוּמֵק שְׁחִים וְחִיוַר

and created him red,
black, and white …

All
of which should remind us of the emphasis on four Gentile women (Tamar,
Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah’s wife) in the genealogy in Matthew 1.

[21]See Gershom
(1999) and Wexelman (1999). Also among the pagans (especially among
those of the East) the avatar of a preexistent being need not be without
a human father—thus Rhys (1922:126): “These Buddhist and Hindu myths are
of course generally connected with the doctrine of re-incarnation. The
God chooses a human father and mother, and then his soul enters the
embryo of their child.” For example, when the gods counseled Vishnu (a
member of the Hindu Trimūrti)
to incarnate in human flesh because only a human could slay the terrible
Rávana, it says (Ramáyana I, 15.7 [translation from Goldman
2005]),

इत्य एतथ वचनं शरुत्वा सुराणां विष्णुर आत्मवान

When the self-controlled Vishnu had heard these words of the
gods,

पितरं रॊचयाम आस तथा थशरदं नृपम

he chose King Dasha-ratha to be his father.

Preexistence does not require a virgin birth but a virgin birth suggests
preexistence or else impregnation by some deity.

[22]One encounters,
for example, comments such as this (Stewart 2003:59):

The Persons (of the
Trinity) are necessary, but the necessity understood obtains in
the context of a very strong perichoretic relationship. The
Father exists necessarily, but he does not have this necessity
in isolation or independence. A necessity issuing from his very
essence impels him to generate the Son, eternally. According to
Richard of St. Victor and Richard Swinburne, since God is
essentially a loving Being (“God is love.”[1John 4:20]), there
is a society of Persons. The Father eternally generates the Son
out of necessity issuing from his nature—He is a loving
Being—and so the Son he generates cannot not be. The
Father thus has an eternal Lover.

[23]A recent writer
who understands this aspect of the kingdom of God is N. T. Wright, e.g.,
Wright (2008:202):

He did not want to rescue humans from creation any more
than he wanted to rescue Israel from the Gentiles. He
wanted to rescue Israel in order that Israel might be a light
to the Gentiles, and he wanted thereby to rescue humans
in order that humans might be his rescuing stewards over
creation. That is the inner dynamic of the kingdom of God.

[24]The rabbis for
the most part were divided on the length of Messiah’s reign. For
example, in this excerpt from Midrash Psalms (ילקוט
שמעוני. מדרש על תורה נביאים וכתובים - Hebrew Text available at
http://www.tsel.org/torah/yalkutsh/tehilim.html#A2209).

[27]According to the
Midrash, the spirit that conveys the office of Messiah is mentioned at
the very beginning—in the second verse of the Torah (Genesis Rabbah
2:4):

וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת

“And the Spirit of God
moved …”

זֶה רוּחוֹ שֶׁל מֶלֶ הַמָּשִׁיחַ

This is the spirit of the King Messiah,

הֵיאַ מַה דְּאַתְּ אָמַר

as it says (Isaiah 11:2),

וְנָחָה עָלָיו רוּחַ ה׳

“And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him …”

[28]Messiah is also
pictured as a shoot or sprout (צֶמַח)
from David (Jer 23:5; 33:15) and simply as a sprout (Zech 3:8; 6:12),
and here as growing out of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1). In the book of
Revelation messiah is (5:5) “the root of David” and (22:16) “the root
and the offspring of David”.

[29]This anointing
is what’s meant by the term messiah [מָשִׁיחַ]
or Christ [Χριστός].
And so the disciples recalled the Psalm (Ps 2:2—“The kings of the earth
set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD,
and against his anointed …”) when they prayed (Acts 4:27), “For of a
truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed [ὃν
ἔχρισας], both
Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel,
were gathered together …” It is Matthew that provides the perplexity,
e.g., Matthew 1:18, “… she was found with child of a holy spirit.” Let
me suggest that underlying Matthew 1:18-25 is a corruption or something
yet to be understood. As it stands Matthew seems to indicate a divine
sanctioning of an illegitimate pregnancy—be it of God or man.

[30]If Jesus were
not a son of David biologically but instead had been adopted into the
Davidic line, this would have been big news and would have led to much
disputation by the apostles. A friend (Clyde Brown) points out that
James D. G. Dunn, who accepts the virgin birth, is puzzled (Dunn
1988:13): “The degree in which Jesus’ Davidic pedigree was simply taken
for granted is striking; there was evidently no consciousness of a need
to argue for Jesus Messiahship despite his not being of David’s line.”
Another friend (in personal communication) argues for a “divine passive”
here (‘which was made [τοῦ
γενομένου] of
the seed of David according to the flesh’) and in Gal 4:4 (‘made of a
woman [γενόμενον],
made [γενόμενον]
under the law’), i.e., that Jesus was a special creation of God not in
need of a human father. But if Gal 4:4 doesn’t prevent Mary from being
the mother why would Rom 1:3 accord with Joseph not being the father?
One could add to the list of divine passives Phil 2:7 (‘and was made [γενόμενος]
in the likeness of men’); Heb 1:4 (‘being made [γενόμενος]
so much better than the angels’); and Heb 6:20 (‘made [γενόμενος]
an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec’)—God obviously
took an active roll in every facet of Jesus’ birth and life—but why
not? He takes an active role in the birth of every human (Ecclesiastes
11:5):

כַּאֲשֶׁר אֵינְ יוֹדֵעַ מַה־דֶּרֶ
הָרוּחַ

As thou knowest not
what is the way of the spirit,

כַּעֲצָמִים בְּבֶטֶןהַמְּלֵאָה

nor
how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with
child:

כָּכָה לֹא תֵדַע אֶת־מַעֲשֵׂה
הָאֱלֹהִים

even so thou knowest
not the works of God

אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂהאֶת־הַכֹּל׃

who maketh all.

And miraculous births are
surely not unknown in the Bible. Right off we’re informed (Gen 11:30),
“But Sarai was barren; she had no child.” And so also was
Rebekah barren (Gen 25:21): “And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife,
because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and
Rebekah his wife conceived.” And it was the same with Jacob’s wives
(Gen 29:31), “And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he
opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.” In each instance we see
the birthright going to those born of miraculous births—but in no case
to a virgin birth.

[31]It is possible
that the offering of the omer that begins the count to the Feast of
Firstfruits, called “a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest [עֹמֶר
רֵאשִׁית קְצִירְכֶם
- δράγμαἀπαρχὴν
τοῦ
θερισμοῦὑμῶν]”
(Lev 23:10), pictures Jesus’ acceptance in heaven after his
resurrection. Thus the morning after the resurrection he says (John
20:17), “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to
my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your
Father; and to my God, and your God.” Yet later that same day
(verse 20) “he shewed unto them his hands and his side.” The
implication is that they touched him.

[34]For discussion
and history see Nisbet (1980) and Himmelfarb (1980). The idea of progress
came under attack within the modernist-materialist agenda, as for
example in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (‘Thus
Spake Zarathustra’, 1883-5), and two World Wars have not done much to
resuscitate the Judeo-Christian optimism that inspired the scientific
revolution in the first place.

[35]The speech is
accessable on line at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/churchill122641.html.

[37]The resurrection
is biblical and Jewish, escape from this world to “heaven” is pagan
(Wright 2008:18): “The roots of the misunderstanding go very deep, not
least into the residual Platonism that hasinfected whole
swaths of Christian thinking and has misled people into supposing that
Christians are meant to devalue this present world and our present
bodies and regard them as shabby or shameful.”

[38]Sons of the most
High (בְּנֵי
עֶלְיוֹן -
υἱοὶ ὑψίστου)
recalls the angel’s words in Luke 1:35 (my translation)—

πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σέ,

A holy spirit shall
come upon thee,

καὶ δύναμις ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι·

and power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee:

διὸ καὶ τὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον κληθήσεται,

therefore he that
shall be born of thee shall be called holy,

υἱὸς θεοῦ.

a son of God.

[39]This discussion
follows a question in regard to (Zech
12:12): “And the
land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David
apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart,
and their wives apart” – the Gemara asks (Sukkah 52a),
“What is the nature of this mourning?” The rabbis, as usual, disagree.
“One said [it is] for the messiah son of Joseph who is
killed (חַד אָמַר עַל מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן יוֹסֵף שֶׁנֶּהֱרַג).”